Winemeisters Weekend: Daniele D’Anna of Cantine Umberto Bortolotti

Yesterday I brought you to an amazing tasting of Prosecco, the food-friendly sparkling wine of the Veneto in northeastern Italy. The event featured members of the Consorzio Tutela del Vino Prosecco DOC di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene. Since the 1960s, this consortium of producers has established, and now maintains and enhances, the high standards of quality for their wine. www.prosecco.it

I had the great pleasure of meeting quite a few vintners, to taste at least two or three different Prosecco bottlings at each table, and to trot out my rusty Italian. In the back of the room, framed against a backdrop of San Francisco Bay and the distant Carneros wine-growing district that spans the southern edge of both Napa and Sonoma, stood the tall, charismatic Daniele D’Anna. Earlier, during my first tasting at the Adami winery table, www.adamispumanti.it the well-connected Enrico Valleferro had singled out “mi amico Daniele” and his wines as an absolute “must.”

Daniele is the grandson (on his mother’s side, hence the different surnames), of Umberto Bortolotti, who founded his eponymous winery www.bortolotti.com in Valdobbiadene in 1947. Daniele is as warm, charming, smart and fun as he is movie-star handsome. (See pic, and yesterday’s too.) And the guy makes some fine, fine vino to boot.

When I arrived at his table, Daniele was pouring his Brut—the first of several Prosecco bottlings from the winery’s “UB” line—for a small group of tasters. I quickly joined in. I loved the wine’s crisp tang and clean dry finish, with nice full fruit. We kicked around some recipe ideas, most of which involved some sort of seafood. (I immediately pictured a mound of oysters, a shucking knife, a lemon and a slew of napkins.)

His second wine, the Extra Dry, has a bit more sweetness in the dosage (pronounced doh-SAAZH, this is a French term for the sugar added to sparkling wine just before bottling; Brut generally has less than Extra Dry). This gives it a softer, rounder overall impression, and suits it to foods with sweetness, salt and/or spice. Our conversation twisted and turned from prosciutto with melon to Thai food and sushi (see yesterday’s post), with lots of tasty stops along the way.

Last, and anything but least, Daniele poured us a taste of the ultra-luxe Cartizze (named for a tiny town in the nearby hills, with an even cooler microclimate than the rest of the region). Cartizze has earned the VSQPRD (Vini Spumanti di Qualita’ Prodotti in Regioni Determinate) designation. Refined, subtle, elegant: bring on the salmon and caviar. (And instead of springing for the sturgeon stuff, I’ll pick up some tobiko (flying-fish roe) at the Asian market for this beauty.

Mille grazie, Daniele D’Anna, for the delicious pours, the lively conversation, and all your great ideas on pairing Prosecco with a world of food. Thanks also for the great “to go” boxful of bubbles—my friends, family and I will be enjoying your wines, and toasting you and your Consorzio colleagues, for quite a while. (And happy 60th anniversary to the Bortolotti winery!)

Ciao for now, e salute—
Cheers,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson